Russian military early warning satellite. 15 launches, 1975.10.08 (Cosmos 775) to 2008.06.26 (Cosmos 2397). Development began of the Soviet Union's Prognoz geosynchronous ballistic missile early warning satellite in 1980.

It was required to fill in the gaps missed by the Oko series in 12-hour Molniya orbits. A single Prognoz deployed at 24 deg W, supplemented by several Okos in lower orbits, provided adequate warning of an American surprise missile attack.

The first generation Oko system, even using a four satellite constellation in Molniya orbits, could not provide 24 hour observation of all possible launch locations. Therefore development began of a replacement system began in 1980. It supplemented the Oko satellites with Prognoz satellites in geosynchronous orbits. The system was accepted in to service in March 1985. This work completed the Unified System of Space Surveillance (YeSKN). In order to provide full time coverage of enemy missile launches a total of nine operational Oko and Prognoz satellites were required - four were needed to cover the US land mass alone. It seems this was never achieved in practice.

Usually a single Prognoz was kept operational at all times at 24 deg W. Reserve satellites were stored at 80 deg E or 12 deg E and moved to 24 deg W as required. After the fall of the Soviet Union one active satellite was kept at 24 deg W and another at 12 deg E.

Proton The Proton launch vehicle has been the medium-lift workhorse of the Soviet and Russian space programs for over forty years. Although constantly criticized within Russia for its use of toxic and ecologically-damaging storable liquid propellants, it has out-lasted all challengers, and no replacement is in sight. More...

Associated Launch Vehicles

Proton The Proton launch vehicle has been the medium-lift workhorse of the Soviet and Russian space programs for over forty years. Although constantly criticized within Russia for its use of toxic and ecologically-damaging storable liquid propellants, it has out-lasted all challengers, and no replacement is in sight. Development of the Proton began in 1962 as a two-stage vehicle that could be used to launch large military payloads or act as a ballistic missile with a 100 megaton nuclear warhead. The ICBM was cancelled in 1965, but development of a three-stage version for the crash program to send a Soviet man around the moon began in 1964. The hurried development caused severe reliability problems in early production. But these were eventually solved, and from the 1970's the Proton was used to launch all Russian space stations, medium- and geosynchronous orbit satellites, and lunar and planetary probes. More...

Proton-K/DM Russian orbital launch vehicle. The original four stage Proton / Block D configuration was used until 1976, at which time it was replaced by a modernised version equipped with N2O4/UDMH verniers for precise placement of payloads in geosynchronous orbit and its own self-contained guidance unit. This was accepted into military service in 1978 with the first Raduga launch. The stage was first developed for launch of gesynchronous military communications and early warning satellites (Raduga, Ekran, Gorizont, Potok, SPRN). Its later versions continue in use for launch of MEO and geosynchronous comsats, and was Russia's most successful commercial launcher. More...

Proton-K/DM-2 Russian orbital launch vehicle. This improved four stage version uses the Block DM-2 / 11S861 fourth stage, which has its own guidance unit. This reduces payload but does not require the spacecraft's guidance system to provide steering commands to booster. Replaced the original Block DM / 11S86 version from 1982 to 1995. Used for launch of Glonass navigation satellites into medium earth orbit; and launch of Luch, Ekran-M, Potok, Raduga, Gorizont, Raduga-1, Elektro, and Gals communications satellites into geosynchronous orbit. Commercial version with Saab payload adapter-seperation system for Western payloads was dubbed 'Block DM1'. More...

Proton-K/DM-2M DM3 Russian orbital launch vehicle. Version of the 11S861-01 with Saab payload adapter-seperation system for insertion of Hughes HS-601 bus spacecraft into geosynchronous orbit. More...

National Space Science Center Planetary Page, As of 19 February 1999.. Web Address when accessed: here.

Associated Launch Sites

Baikonur Russia's largest cosmodrome, the only one used for manned launches and with facilities for the larger Proton, N1, and Energia launch vehicles. The spaceport ended up on foreign soil after the break-up of Soviet Union. The official designations NIIP-5 and GIK-5 are used in official Soviet histories. It was also universally referred to as Tyuratam by both Soviet military staff and engineers, and the US intelligence agencies. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Russian Federation has insisted on continued use of the old Soviet 'public' name of Baikonur. In its Kazakh (Kazak) version this is rendered Baykonur. More...

Cosmos 2379 - .
Payload: SPRN No. 9. Nation: Russia. Agency: VKS. Manufacturer: Lavochkin. Class: Military. Type: Early warning satellite. Spacecraft: Prognoz SPRN. USAF Sat Cat: 26892 . COSPAR: 2001-037A. Apogee: 35,810 km (22,250 mi). Perigee: 35,768 km (22,225 mi). Inclination: 1.6000 deg. Period: 1,436.20 min. Launch delayed from August 23. Early-warning geosynchronous satellite. The Proton upper stage entered a geostationary transfer orbit after its first burn at 2152 GMT. A second burn was at 0310 GMT put the payload into its operational orbit. It was to provide early warning of missiles launched from the United States with the help of a heat-sensing array of detectors. According to the Moscow Kommersant newspaper, these early warning geosynchronous satellites belong to the US-KMO group, also known as Prognoz fleet, while the highly elliptical complement belongs to the US-KS group, also known as Oko fleet, both supplemented by about eight ground-based radars. As of 6 September 2001 located at 80.17 deg E drifting at 0.031 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 23.84W drifting at 0.002W degrees per day.